White Christmas (Part 1)
We spent our first weekend up at the house over the long Christmas weekend. We drove up late Friday night to avoid commuter traffic. We got into town in the dark and saw our house for the first time. I hopped out of the car and grabbed the keys from the front door while my better half drove around the block to find the alley that hooks up to our garage. This was my first experience with the door locks on the house and boy do they suck. I'll describe the setup more when we replace them, but each door has a different combination of keys needed to open it, and the garage access door has a vintage surface-mount deadbolt latch contraption that doesn't actually work. After I managed to get into the garage, we unpacked the car, cranked up the heat, and hit the sack.
Saturday, we got to know the house, taking a few more measurements and flipping the many unlabeled light switches. For some reason, my mental picture of the house is 25% smaller than it actually is, so getting to see the rooms without furniture really didn't help me with my sense of scale.
Once we got comfortable, we decided to explore the carpet situation: ever since we found the old listing photos from 2014, we've been hoping the old wood floors were intact and in decent condition upstairs and in the entry-hall. Our real estate broker told us that a lot of the hones built in the early 1900s had oak on the first floor and fir upstairs for cost savings. Furthermore, one of the other homes we viewed was set up with fir on both floors and it wasn't in the greatest shape, so we were a little hesitant.
We started with a corner in each bedroom and were relieved to see wood instead of OSB, MDF, or plywood. We then checked the front entry hall and the first bit looked really good; peeled back a little more though, and we were disappointed. What flooring was intact was covered in tar paper residue, and a lot of it was missing and patched with plywood. We kept pulling and discovered the old service porch and transition between the original house and the addition was covered in linoleum and the carpet was installed right over it.
Thankfully, the rest of the rooms got better from there. We tried the north bedroom nest, knowing that it had been exposed wood in 2014 and apart from some very unfortunate giant nail tearout, it was in really good shape. The pad hadn't started to melt into the finish yet so we think some patching/filling, a light sanding, and a topcoat might be all it needs. It is a lighter color, so it won't match the smaller bedroom.
The master bedroom is the same dark red color as the small bedroom and the pad had made it all gritty, but it was probably in the best physical shape of the three. It will need just some minor repairs and finish removal.
But before all that, we have to get the damn tack strips off the floor. News to follow...
Saturday, we got to know the house, taking a few more measurements and flipping the many unlabeled light switches. For some reason, my mental picture of the house is 25% smaller than it actually is, so getting to see the rooms without furniture really didn't help me with my sense of scale.
Once we got comfortable, we decided to explore the carpet situation: ever since we found the old listing photos from 2014, we've been hoping the old wood floors were intact and in decent condition upstairs and in the entry-hall. Our real estate broker told us that a lot of the hones built in the early 1900s had oak on the first floor and fir upstairs for cost savings. Furthermore, one of the other homes we viewed was set up with fir on both floors and it wasn't in the greatest shape, so we were a little hesitant.
We started with a corner in each bedroom and were relieved to see wood instead of OSB, MDF, or plywood. We then checked the front entry hall and the first bit looked really good; peeled back a little more though, and we were disappointed. What flooring was intact was covered in tar paper residue, and a lot of it was missing and patched with plywood. We kept pulling and discovered the old service porch and transition between the original house and the addition was covered in linoleum and the carpet was installed right over it.
Rip It All Out
We started to get worried, so we went back upstairs and started yanking out all the carpet and pad. We started in the smallest bedroom and did not love what we saw: the floor had some pretty bad gouges and holes, and at the door to the hall, a good 1'x3' patch was cracked and split to the point where pieces of strip floor were actually missing. On the other hand, it was mostly intact and still looked a lot better than the carpet. Right now, it is a deep red garnet color with a sandy texture from the carpet pad.
Thankfully, the rest of the rooms got better from there. We tried the north bedroom nest, knowing that it had been exposed wood in 2014 and apart from some very unfortunate giant nail tearout, it was in really good shape. The pad hadn't started to melt into the finish yet so we think some patching/filling, a light sanding, and a topcoat might be all it needs. It is a lighter color, so it won't match the smaller bedroom.
The master bedroom is the same dark red color as the small bedroom and the pad had made it all gritty, but it was probably in the best physical shape of the three. It will need just some minor repairs and finish removal.
But before all that, we have to get the damn tack strips off the floor. News to follow...
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